BIG IDEA: The duty, how to, motives, arguments, and blessings of family worship.

Question: What is meant by family worship? Answer: Family worship is the daily use of prayer, Scripture, catechism, and song by a family, led by the head of the household, to worship the one true God for His glory and your good.


Will you join with the saints and worship the Lord with your families? God deserves it!

II. THE HOW TO OF FAMILY WORSHIP (Deut 6; Job 1; Heb. 6; Rom. 6:17; Ps. 118:15-16)

Plan. Be disciplined. It will not happen if you do not plan and stay disciplined. Set a time and make it happen. Richard Cecil said, “Let family worship be short, savory, simple, plain, tender, and heavenly.”‬ It does not need to be more than 10-20 minutes. Start somewhere and improve as you go.

I) Pray, thanking God and interceding on behalf of your family (Job 1:5).

II) Read the Scriptures, explaining and applying to the best of your ability (Deuteronomy 6:4-7).

III) Catechize, memorizing the most important questions and answers you can ask (Hebrews 6:1; Romans 6:17; 2 Timothy 1:13; 2 Thessalonians 2:15).

IV) Sing, lifting your voices in praise with a Psalm, Hymn, or Spiritual Song (Ps. 118:15-16, Eph. 5:18).

III. MOTIVES FOR FAMILY WORSHIP (Thomas Doolittle)

Thomas Doolittle (1630-1707) in his sermon “How May the Duty of Daily Family Prayer be Best Managed for the Spiritual Benefit of Every one in the Family?”
I) You should pray to God daily in your families because we receive every day family-mercies from the hand of God (Ps. 68:9). II) Because there are sins committed every day in your families (Ps. 51:3). III) Because you have many daily family-needs, which none can supply but God (Matt. 6:11). IV) Because of your families’ daily employments and labors (Ps. 127:1-2). V) Because you are all every day liable to temptations (1 Pet. 5:8). VI) Because all in your families are liable to daily hazards, casualties, and afflictions (Jn. 16:33). VII) You must pray to God in your families daily, or the very Heathen will rise up against you Christians and condemn you.

I would simply add, VIII) You must worship God daily in your families because He is worthy of worship!

IV) ARGUMENTS FOR FAMILY WORSHIP

Oliver Heywood (1630-1702) in his book “The Family Altar”:

I) Suppose a grave and pious minister, or Christian friend lodge with you, would you not reach him a bible, and desire him to go to prayer with you, lest he should suspect you to be prayerless at other times? And will not God's authority and presence have the like influence, and awe upon your spirits?

II) Suppose your friends and relations should quite disown, and disclaim you, unless you would pray in your family, would you not make a hard shift to do something that way, rather than be accounted unworthy of human society? And shall that prevail more than God's disclaiming you, or disowning converse with you?

III) If your landlord should turn you out of your house, or your father should disinherit you, if you set not up this family altar, could you be content to suffer both, rather than do it? And shall a threatening of your Father in heaven, or great landlord, to reject or eject you out of heaven avail nothing?

IV) If a law were imposed upon you to pay five shillings every time that you neglect prayer in your family, would you forfeit that sum as oft as you go prayerless to bed ; would you not fear that would beggar you? And shall not greater losses and heavier penalties deter you from this omission?

V) If the king or a nobleman should promise you five pounds every time that you call your family together, read a chapter, sing a psalm, kneel down and pray to God, would you not strain hard to procure that money? And will not a greater profit from Almighty God prevail with you to perform this exercise to obtain a reward ?

VI) Suppose a brand were set upon your foreheads, like Cain's, or a dreadful trembling should seize upon your bodies for such a neglect…would not this shame you out of your criminal omission?

VII) Suppose the next time you go prayerless to bed, your loveliest child and darling should be snatched away by a sudden stroke of death, as it was in Egypt, when the first-born of Pharaoh and others died, and there was a great cry.* Would not this move you into a better course? Oh, but a greater evil befalls you, your own precious souls are endangered by neglect.

VIII) Suppose a red cross, with a “Lord have mercy upon us," were set upon your doors, and the pestilence were within your house, seizing on you, one after another, and you had nothing else to do but to get ready to die would you not spend some time in prayer with yourselves and families? Behold a worse plague is upon you, the plague of sin, and will you not pray?